THE SOCIO-LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The rise of the English language is a remarkable phenomenon. When Caesar
landed in Britain, English did not even exist. Five hundred years later, Englisc was
probably spoken by about as few people as currently speak Cherokee, or some other native
American or Australian language. Nearly one thousand years later, when Shakespeare was
in his prime, English was the native speech of between five and seven million people.
Today, it is used by at least 750 millions and half of them are native speakers. It has
become the language of the planet.
Before the history of English became the history of expansion, however, it had
been, for a long period of time, the history of invasions.
THE BEGINNINGS
One of the earliest westward migrations from the cradle of Indo-European
nations was made by Celtic tribes. From the central part of Europe they spread over a huge
territory in Europe. Before the beginning of the Christian era, Celtic languages were
spoken over a greater part of central and western Europe. Britain was settled by Celtic
tribes Picts, Scots and Britons. They spoke Gaelic and Brythonic dialects. Gaelic (or
Goidelic) dialects spread from Ireland, where they survived as Irish Gaelic, to Scotland,
where they evolved into Scottish Gaelic or Erse (Erse is a Lowland word for Irish). On the
island of Man, the Gaelic language Manx was spoken until the 19th century. Brythonic
dialects were spoken by Picts (Pictish), who were later assimilated by Scots and adopted
Scottish Gaelic, and by Britons in the southern parts of England. Brythonic dialects later
evolved into Cornish, Welsh and Breton. Breton was the language of those Britons who, at
the time of Anglo-Saxon invasions, crossed the Channel, settled in the Gaulish province
Armorica and named it after their homeland (Brittany).
The Celtic tribes, especially the Britons, had the misfortune to inhabit an island
that was highly desirable for its agricultural and mineral potential. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar
invaded the island, mostly to secure the Roman rule in Gaule. The occupation became
effective only a century later, under Emperor Claudius, but British Celts continued to
speak their own languages. Nevertheless, a few Latin words crept into British usage. Place
names like Chester, Manchester, and Winchester are all related to Latin castra “camp”.
The Roman legions withdrew in AD 410. At that time, a new generation of
raiders of Germanic provenience were getting ready for the misty and fertile island.
According to Bede’s Ecclasiastical History of the English Nation, written in
Latin in 730, the first landing of Germanic tribes occurred in 449:
Her Martianus and Valentius onfengon rice, and ricsodon seofon winter,
And on hiera dagum Hengest and Horsa, fram Wyrtgeorne gelaþode,
Bretta cyninge, gesohton Bretene on þæm stede þe is genemned Ypwines
flegt, ærest Brettum to fultume, ac hie eft on hie fuhton. Se cyning het hie
feohtan onegean Peohtas; and hie swa dydon, and sige haefde swa hwær
swa hie comon. Hie þa sendon to Angle, and heton him sendan maran
fultum; and heton him secgan Bretweala nahtnesse and þæs landes cyste.
Hie þa sendon him maran fultum. þa comon þa menn of þrim aægþum
Germanie: of Eald-seaxum, of Englum, of Iotum.
“In this year (449), Martianus and Valentinus came to the throne (in Rome)
and ruled for seven years (winters). And in their days, Hengest and Horsa,
invited by the British king Wyrtgeorne, sought the Britons at the place
called Ypwines, first to help the Britons, but later they turned against them.
The king had summoned them to help him fight the Picts, and they did that,
and they were victorious wherever they arrived. Then they sent to the
Angles to get more help; and they wanted to tell them about the beauty of
Britain. They did send more help, and men came from three Germanic
tribes: Old Saxons, Angles and Jutes”.
Germanic tribes had been summoned by Britons to help them fight the Picts,
who had attacked them after the withdrawal of Romans. The ships carried Jutes from
Jutland, Saxons from Lower Saxony, Angles from Schleswig-Holstein and probably many
other warriors. They first defeated Pictish aggressors, but after the victory they turned
against the Britons. The Britons withdrew to Wales and Cornwall or crossed the Channel
to Brittany. The most successful resistance was put up by Artorius, the leader who
probably inspired the legend of King Arthur. He managed to establish an uneasy peace for
a generation, but in the long run, the newcomers were unbeatable. They got under control
the most fertile parts of the island.
The Jutes settled in the southeastern part, to this day called by its Celtic name
Kent. The Saxons were to occupy the rest of the region south of the Thames, and the
Angles settled the large area from the Thames to the Scottish Highlands. The Britons were
pushed to the so-called Celtic fringe, to Cornwall and Wales. The new-comers called them
Wealas - “foreigners”.
In the course of the next 150 years, the Germanic settlement comprised seven
kingdoms: Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. Kent soon
became the first chief centre of culture and wealth. By the end of the 6th century, King
Eðelbert ruled over all other kingdoms. Later, in the 7th and 8th century, the supremacy
passed to Northumbria, with its great centres of learning Lindisfarne and Jarrow, then to
Mercia, and finally to Wessex.
ANGLO-SAXON
When speaking about the language of the earliest Germanic settlers, the term
Anglo-Saxon is usually applied, after the two largest tribes that spoke it. In linguistic
world, the name Old English is preferred (in contrast to Middle English and Modern or
New English).
Anglo-Saxon or Old English was spoken from the Germanic settlement of
England to about 1100, the time of the Norman Conquest. It was not a uniform language.
The main areas of dialects corresponded with the areas settled by different tribes.
The Jutes settled down in Kent and their dialect was called Kentish. The
Saxons spoke Saxon dialects. The dialects of the Angles fell into two groups: Mercian and
Northumbrian. The relative importance of individual dialects changed with the political
power of their speakers. When Winchester became the capital of England in 828, West
Saxon became the most important Old English dialect. From that time on, all records were
written in West Saxon, even Beowulf, which had originally been composed in an Anglian
dialect.
What kind of a language was Old English or Anglo-Saxon?
The most reliable source of our knowledge of Old English is the early English
literature. Some of it had been brought by the Germanic conquerors from their continental
homes, and it was handed down to new generations orally for a long time. We generally
refer to this part of the Old English literature as the early Old English pagan poetry, the
greatest single work being Beowulf, a poem of about 3,000 lines. The major part of Old
English literature was written from 9th to 11th century. An especially prominent place goes
to translations from Latin, written or commissioned by King Alfred, and especially to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a written history of England from the conversion to Christianity
up to 1154. It is the earliest known history of a European people recorded in the language
of that people by successive generations of scribes.
A native speaker of English would not recognize Old English as his own
language. The pronunciation, the lexicon and the grammar were different from the presentday English. It was truly a Germanic language, lacking words of Latin or French origin,
which constitute such an impressive part of the modern English vocabulary. Despite its
early contact with Celtic languages, they hardly left any trace in it. Apart from place
names, Old English adopted barely a dozen of Celtic words, such as ass, bannock, brock,
crag, tor, combe ..., the last three being especially common in place names.
Place names of Celtic origin had often been Latinized during the Roman rule:
Manchester, Chester, London (< Londinum < lond ‘wild’), Lincoln (< Lindum Colonia <
lynn ‘lake’, Dover (< Dubris < dwfr ‘water’).
The scarcity of Celtic words in English is usually ascribed to the social gap
between the two nations, which has not disappeared to this day. On the face of it, the
English language has been indifferent to the Celts, but many of the finest writers in
English are of Celtic origin: Swift, Burns, Burke, Scott, Stevenson, Wilde, and Shaw.
The nature of the early Old English reflects the heroic and sea-faring past (in
early poetry), and agrarian life of its speakers on the island. Without going into the literary
merit of the early Old English poetry, one has to recognize its singular charm. The wealth
of synonyms is especially astonishing in certain domains. We find 36 words for hero or
prince in Beowulf (æðeling, cniht, cynning, dryhten, ealdor, eorl, hlaford...), and many
words for ‘battle’ or ‘fight’: beadu, gewinn, wig, lindplega (=shield play). Beowulf has 17
expressions for ‘sea’ (brim, flodweg, garsecg, sæ...) and 11 words for vessels:(bat,
brenting, ceol, fær, flota, scip, sundwudu...) etc.
How are we to account for this wealth of synonyms?
Apart from the fact that some of them may be just metaphorical variations, like
when a ship is called a sea-horse, or a boat a swimming piece of wood, the number is still
impressive. We may assume that these words were not simply synonyms, but that they
were rather specialized terms. A language has always many specialized terms for those
concepts that are vital for the daily doings of its speakers1.
The vocabulary related to farming is all of Anglo-Saxon origin: sheap (sheep),
cu (cow), ox, eorþ (earth), pluh (plough), wudu (wood), swin (swine) etc. The modern
English names for the months of the year come from Latin, but Old English names reflect
the agrarian life:
January (the month of Janus) = Wulf-Monaþ (the month of wolves)
February (the month of cleansing, < Februa, theRoman festival of purification) = Sprote-KaleMonaþ (the month when the cabbage sprouts)
March (the month of Mars) = Hlyd Monaþ (the month of noisy winds)
April (< Latin apero ‘open’, or after the Etruscan goddess Apriu) = Easter-Monaþ (the month of
Easter, < Eostre - goddess of spring)
May (after Maia - goddess of growth) = Thri-milce Monaþ (the month of three milkings)
June (after a Roman family Junius) = Sere-Monaþ (the dry month)
July (after Julius Caesar) = Mæd-Monaþ (the month of meadows)
August (after Emperor Augustus) = Weod-Monaþ (the month of weeds)
September (the seventh month) = Hærfest-Monaþ (the month of harvest)
October (the tenth month) = Win-Monaþ (the month of wine)
November (the ninth month) = Blod-Monaþ (the month of blood - from sacrified cattle)
December - (the tenth month) = Mid-Winter Monaþ, later Halig-Monaþ, or Geola-Monaþ. Geola
was pronounced /ju:la/, it is preserved in Yule Tide ‘the Christmas season’. Originally it was the
name of a heathen festival
An examination of the words used in Old English texts showed that about 85
percent are no longer in use.
The grammar of the Old English language was quite different from the modern
English language. Old English was an inflectional language. The noun, for example,
displayed three grammatical genders, two numbers, four cases, five major and a number of
minor declensions. Adjectives and participles agreed with the headword noun in gender,
case and number. The verb had different forms for three persons, two numbers, two tenses
1
Henry Sweet, a linguist from the 19th century, wrote in his book ‘The Practical Study of Language’ (1899:163):
If we open an Arabic dictionary at random, we may expect to find something about a camel: ‘a young camel’, ‘an
old camel’, ‘a strong camel’, ‘to feed a camel on the fifth day’, ‘to feel a cameʼl hump to ascertain its fatness’ all these being not only simple words, but root-words.
Another linguist, Gabelenz, reports in his Sprachwissenschaft (1981) that the Araucanians in Chile distinguish between many shades of
hunger. The Aborigines of Tasmania had a name for each variety of a gum-tree, but none for ‘a tree’. The Mohicans have words for
cutting various objects, but not for simply cutting. The Zulus have different words for red cows and white cows, but not for a cow, In
Cherokee there are different words for washing different objects.
and two moods. The most productive method of word-formation was preffixation.
Grammatical categories were rendered by bound morphemes (inflections).
THE CONVERSION OF ANGLO-SAXONS TO CHRISTIANITY
By Roman standards, Anglo-Saxons lived outside of civilization. Civilization
came to them in the form of Christianity in AD 597. According to the famous tradition, the
mission of St. Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons was inspired by the man who was
later to become Pope Gregory the Great. Walking one morning up the market place in
Rome, he came upon some fair-haired boys about to be sold as slaves. He was told that
they had come from the island of Britain and that they were pagans. “What a pity”, he said,
“that the author of darkness is possessed of men of such fair countenance”. When he was
told that they were ‘Angli’, he added: “Right, for they have an angelic face and it is fitting
that such should be co-heirs with angels in heaven...”
Bede says that Gregory intended to undertake the mission himself, but in the
end he sent Augustine with 50 monks. They landed in Kent. King Ethelbert welcomed
them, as Bede reports, with the following words:
“Your words and promises are fair indeed; they are new and
uncertain, and I cannot accept them and abandon the age-old
beliefs that I have held together with the whole English nation. But
since you have travelled far, and I can see that you are sincere in
your desire to impart to us what you believe to be true and
excellent, we will not harm you. We will receive you hospitably and
take care to supply you with all that you need; nor will we forbid
you to preach and win any people you can to your religion”.
The tolerant approach of the king is perhaps due to the influence of his
Frankish wife Bertha, who was already a devout Christian. Soon after, Ethelberth was
baptized, and Augustine was made the first archbishop of Canterbury.
The conversion of Anglo-Saxons was a gradual and peaceful process. It
received a real boost in 635, when Aidan, a charismatic preacher from the Celtic church in
Ireland, who founded the monastery of Lindisfarne, started to spread the Christian faith
from the north. The two sources of English Christianity are reflected in two words for its
central symbol. The word cross comes from Old Irish cros, and it was originally used in
the north. In the south, the form cruc (< Latin crux, crucis) was used, directly descended
from Latin. The latter is preserved in the expression Crutched Friars, a mendicant
religious order, suppressed in 1656.
With the conversion came the construction of monasteries, the learning
centres, in which not only religious matters, but also poetry, astronomy and arithmetic
were taught. The monks encouraged writing in the vernacular language.
The Anglo-Saxons had come into contact with some Christian concepts long
before the conversion, in their continental homeland, and some of the early words
pertaining to Christianity were:
church < Greek kuriakón ‘the house of the Lord’
minster < OE mynster < Vulgar Latin monasterium
devil < OE deofol < Greek diabolos ‘enemy, slanderer’ (Satan < Hebrew
‘plotter’)
angel < OE engel < Greek angelos ‘messenger’
The bulk of words related to Christian terms had to wait until the conversion. The English
language was enriched in two different ways:
a) New words were adopted for new concepts:
disciple < Latin discere ‘learn’)
priest < OE preost, (presbyter < Greek presbuteros ‘older man’)
bishop < OE biscop, <Greek episcopus ‘watcher’
nun < OE nunne < Late Latin nonna, ‘an elderly woman, a child’s nurse’
monk < OE munuc, < Latin monachus < Greek monos ‘alone’
abbot < OE abbod < Latin abbat < Aramaic abba ‘father’)
apostle < OE apostol < Greek apostolos ‘a person sent forward’
pope < OE papa < Greek pappas ‘father’)
......
Some words are related to Oriental concepts: camel, lion, cedar, myrrh (a tree
producing aromatic raisin), orange, pepper…
b) The meaning of existing words was adjusted to new concepts:
god, heafon, synne, teoþa, Eastron, Feond, hælend, witega (prophet), ealdormann
(Jewish high priests), Sundor Halgan (Pharisees), halga (hallow, All Hallows’ even >
hallowe’en > halloween), god-spell (translation of Latin evangelium ‘good news’).
By the end of the 8th century, the impact of Christianity had produced a new culture. One
of its greatest witnesses is the illuminated LINDISFARNE MANUSCRIPT OR THE
DURHAM BOOK. It consists of 258 leaves and contains the four gospels in Latin with an
interlinear gloss in Northumbrian. It is kept as one of the Cotton MSS in the British
Museum (the Latin text probably from about AD 700, the gloss 250 years later).
THE SCANDINAVIAN INVASION AND THE UNIFICATION OF
ENGLAND
As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent (ruled 560-616), one king could be
recognized as Bretwalda, ‘the ruler of Britain’. Generally speaking, the title went to the
kings of Northumbria in the 7th century, in the 8th to those of Mercia, and finally, in the
9th century, to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at Ellendun. In the
next century his family came to rule all England.
Egbert’s grandson Alfred became king of Wessex (871) in one of England’s
darkest hours.
Towards the end of the 8th century, Scandinavians set out on one of the great
migrations in the history of Europe. Tribes from the present-day Sweden established a
kingdom in Russia, Norwegians pushed towards the British Isles, the Faroes and Iceland,
to Greenland and eventually to Labrador. The Danes, also called the Norsemen, landed on
the shores of northern France and eventually in England. Collectively, all these people
were called Vikings (< vik ‘sea inlet’).
At the time of King Alfred’s rule, the Danes had given up their initial goal to
plunder, and set on conquering England. Wessex and Alfred were all that stood in their
way. Alfred at first had to retreat to the marches of Somerset, but after his victory at
Edington in 878, he forced the Danish king Guthrum to accept baptism and a division of
England into two parts, Wessex and what historians later called the Danelaw (Essex, East
Anglia, and Northumbria). By creating an English navy, reorganizing the Anglo-Saxon
fyrd, or militia, allowing his warriors to alternate between farming and fighting, and
building strategic forts, Alfred captured London and began to roll back the Danish tide.
The frontier ran along the line from London to Chester.
Alfred also gave his attention to good government, issuing a set of dooms, or
laws, and to scholarship. He promoted, and assisted in, the translation of Latin works into
Old English, and encouraged the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. King Alfred
(849-899), King of Wessex between 871 and 899, established the records at Westminster
Abbey and began with a systematic registration of events that characterizes later sections
of the Chronicle, especially those dealing with his own reign. Seven different versions of
the Chronicle are known to exist. Most copies end in the 11th century, one of them (The
Petersborough Chronicle) breaking off with an unfinished entry for 1154. For his many
accomplishments, Alfred was called The Great, the only English king so acclaimed2.
THE EFFECT OF NORSE ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
In some places the Scandinavians gave up their language early, but in some
parts of Scotland Norse was spoken as late as in the 17th century. In yet other parts, many
people were doubtlessly bilingual, especially because of the intermarriages between the
two nations. Eventually, the English language prevailed, but the linguistic input of Norse
was quite extensive, especially in northern dialects.
The infiltration of Scandinavian words into English was slow. There are about
1500 of Scandinavian place names, mostly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. They have
typical Scandinavian endings:
2 The conquest of the Danelaw was completed by Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder (ruled 899-924), and by
his grandson Athelstan. It marked the creation of a unified government for all England and the evolution of the territorial
state, which was replacing the kinship structure of earlier times. The king ruled with the assistance of the witenagemot, a
council of advisers. After 991, this government proved capable of collecting the Danegeld, a tax on land, initially used as
tribute to the Danes but later as an ordinary source of royal revenue.
A new round of Danish invasions came in the reign of Ethelred II (c. 978-1016). Called the Unraed (in
Old English ‘bad counsel’ or ‘unwise’, later corrupted into ‘Unready’, as he is popularly known), the Danegeld
was his idea, as was the attempt to kill all the Danes from previous invasions, who were by this time becoming
assimilated. In 1014 he was driven from the throne by King Sweyn I of Denmark, only to return a few months later
when Sweyn died. When Ethelred died in 1016, Sweyn’s son Canute II won out over Edmund II, called the
Ironside, the son of Ethelred. Under Canute II, England was part of an empire that also included Denmark and
Norway.
-by ‘farm’, later ‘town’ - Derby, Rugby, Grimsby; cf. by-law ‘local law’ (600)
-thorp ‘village’ - Althorp, Astonthorpe, Linthorpe (300)
-thwaite ‘clearing’ - Applethwaite, Storthwaite (300)
-toft ‘homestead’ - Eastoft, Sandtoft (100)
-wick ‘sea-inlet’ Swainswick
Place names of Anglo-Saxon origin have typical endings -ton (for town), -ham
(for settlement), -ing, -stowe, -sted.
The location of places with Scandinavian names reveals that the new settlers
occupied less fertile land and swampy areas, and so left the English undisturbed.
The second influx of words of Scandinavian origin reflects the early relation
between the two hostile nations while the war for supremacy was still going on. The words
that came into the English language pertain to domains in which Scandinavians were
found superior. These areas were navigation, warfare, administration and law. Most of
them, except law, died out after the Norman takeover: barda, cnearr (vessels), liþ (fleet),
ran (robbery), orrest (battle), law, outlaw, by-law...
The bulk of Scandinavian words came into the English language after the
Danes had settled peacefully in the country. The words are not related to new concepts, but
rather result from the give-and-take of the every day life:
band, bank, birth, crook, dirt, egg, fellow, freckle, kid, sister, skill, skin, sky,
steal, trust, want, window (< wind eaga ‘the eye of the wind’); verbs: call, die, get, give,
nag, raise, take; same, both, they, them, their, are;
The spread of the -s ending for the 3rd person singular of the present indicative,
the generalization of the -s plural ending of nouns may have also been related to the
impact of Norse.
It is sometimes difficult to tell whether a word is of Anglo-Saxon or
Scandinavian origin, since the two languages were very similar. One indicator is the
pronunciation /sk/, /k/ and /g/ before front vowels: skirt, shirt, skin, skill, kid, get, give...In
Anglo-Saxon these consonants had been palatalized, in Norse they remained velar.
For a long time, Norse words must have used alongside the English ones, and
sometimes both have survived:
Norse
Anglo-Saxon
skirt
deya (die)
raise
want
skill
nay
skin
fro
ill
scot
shirt
starve (steorfan)
rear
wish
craft
no
hide
from
sick
shot
The Scandinavian influence was and still is much more extensive in nonstandard, especially northern regional varieties of English.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND THE SUBJUGATION OF ENGLISH
(1066-1200)
On the north-eastern coast of France, directly across from England, there is a
district called Normandy. It is named after Danish invaders, who called themselves
Norsemen when they settled there in the 9th and 10th centuries, at the same time when
similar bands were occupying England. Rollo, the leader of Normans, and Charles the
Simple, King of France, reached an agreement similar to the one between Guthrun and
King Alfred a generation earlier. Rollo acknowledged the French king as his liege, and, in
return, got the title of the Duke of Normandy.
In the next 150 years, the dukes of Normandy overshadowed the power of the
king. They adopted the customs of the French, as well as their legal system and language.
In the 11th century, Normandy was essentially French, and the Normans were among the
most progressive and powerful Europeans.
The relations between England and Normandy were close. When the Danes
exiled the English king in 1012, he took refuge in Normandy. His wife was Norman and
his son Edward the Confessor was brought up in France. When Edward was reinstated as
King of England, he brought with him a number of Norman friends and a strong French
atmosphere prevailed at the English court.
Edward died childless in 1066. The day after, Harold, the Earl of Wessex, was
elected the new king. William, the Duke of Normandy, was Edward’s second cousin and
Edward had supposedly promised him the throne.
William was determined to obtain the throne. First, he secured the support of
his vassals by promising them rich rewards. He obtained the blessing of the Pope and, in
September 1066, he landed on the southern coast of England. At the time, Harold was
fighting in the north, against another claimant of the throne, the king of Norway. He won
there and hurried back to the south, and made a stronghold of a hill not far from Hastings.
His position on the hill was so strong that William had to resort to a ruse. He feigned
retreat, the English followed him, and on the open field the battle was resumed. King
Harold was killed and the English panicked.
After the victory, William pillaged and burnt the southeast of England. The
citizens of London capitulated and on Christmas day 1066, William was crowned King of
England.
Had William been chosen originally, he would have been but another new
king, with perhaps more Frenchmen at the Court, but the English nobility would have been
left intact. But this was a conquest. Many of the English noblemen had been killed at
Hastings. Those who had escaped were treated as traitors. By 1076, the last of the English
earls had been executed. The estates and the high positions, both in government and in the
Church, were given to French speaking Normans. Foreign monks and priests sought
greater career opportunities in England. There must have been many people of lower
walks of life that came from France to England.
For 200 years, French was the ordinary language of conversation among the
upper classes. Even people of English descent must have found it to their advantage to
speak French. The distinction between the two language communities was social, rather
than ethnic.
The most important factor in favour of the continued use of French was the
close connection between England and the Continent. The nobility had estates in both
countries. Henry II, for instance, controlled two thirds of the French territory. The
literature produced in England at that time was in French.
Shortly after 1200, England lost an important part of possessions in France. In
1204, King John lost Normandy. He had married Isabelle d’Angoulême, who had been
engaged to a French nobleman. Anticipating hostility from the fiancé’s family, he attacked
them. The family appealed to King of France. Philippe summoned John to appear at his
Court in Paris, and submit to the judgement of his peers. John refused, and on the day he
was supposed to appear at the Court, his territory was confiscated.
Both kings required that the aristocracy renounced their property either in
England or in France. The hostilities persisted for several centuries, especially after the
open support that France gave to Scotland. They culminated in the Hundred Years’ War, a
series of armed conflicts from 1337 to 1453. The formal reason for the Hundred Years’
War was the English claim of the French throne, among the economic ones the most
important was the claim of Flanders.
The anti-French feelings were not difficult to stir. The rule of the French
speaking Plantagenets (Angevins) was not very popular. Complaints had been made
already in the early years of the 13th century against Henry III, who had attracted too many
foreigners to London.
The English first made it back in Church. Sermons and carols were rendered in
English. At the end of the 13th century, Edward I denounced King of France that it was
“his detestable purpose, which God forbid, to wipe out our English tongue”.
In 1348, the Black Death reached England and decimated the population. By
making labour scarce, it improved the position of the English working men. A generation
of semi-educated, non-French and non-Latin speakers had to take over the monasteries:
English grammar began to be taught in schools. In 1356, the Mayor of London ordered
that court proceedings be heard in English. In 1362 the Chancellor opened Parliament in
English. In 1381, Richard II addressed peasants in English. In 1404 Henry IV claimed and
accepted the crown in English. The English language had survived.
The English language that was re-established as the official language in
England was completely changed, so much, that the period from the Norman Conquest to
the end of the 15th century (the end of the Plantagenets and the accession of the Tudors3) is
3
The founder of the Tudor House was a Welsh nobleman Owen Tudor, who married Catherine of Valois,
traditionally called THE MIDDLE ENGLISH (1066/1100-1485/1500).
THE IMPACT OF FRENCH ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
French was spoken in England long enough to leave a deep impression on
English. It directly or indirectly affected not only its lexicon, but also its grammar. Over
50% of the present-day English words are of French origin. We only need to examine the
origin of words pertaining to different domains to see that the newcomers constituted the
upper class.
1. Government and Administration
French: state, government, reign, realm (< royaume), minister, chancellor (in
GB secretary of an embassy; Lord Chancellor = the highest judge and the chairman of the
House of Lords; Chancellor of the Exchequer = minister of finances), council (counsel advice, counsellor = adviser; in US and Ireland = lawyer), councillor; authority,
parliament, people, nation;
2. Feudal System and Court Life
French: feudal, vassal, liege (feudal lord), prince, peer, duke, duchess,
marquis, marchioness, count (foreigners, English: earl), countess; Anglo-Saxon: king,
queen, lady, lord;
3. Military Matters
French: army, war, peace, battle, assault, siege, officer, sergeant, soldier,
troops, navy, admiral, general, enemy, danger, escape, spy, prison, march, guard;
4. Law
French: justice, judge, jury, court, accuse, crime, felony, traitor, suit, plaintiff,
defendant, plead, summon, session;
5. Ecclesiastical Life
French: saint, virgin, saviour, clergy, parish, service;
6. Household
French: sir, madam, servant, rich, poor, master, mistress, command, obey,
order;
7. Food
Anglo-Saxon (animals): ox, cow, calf, sheep, deer, swine, cook, breakfast,
widow of Henry V. The Tudor rulers were Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elisabeth I). James I
from the House of Stuarts married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII
lunch; French (food): beef, veal, pork, mutton, venison, sauce, boil, fry, roast, toast,
dinner, supper, feast;
8. Occupations
French: tailor, butcher, mason, painter, carpenter, joiner, furniture, table, chair;
Anglo-Saxon: baker, smith, miller, weaver, saddler, shoe-maker, fisherman,
shepherd, stool.
When synonyms survived, they are likely to display some difference of
meaning. The native word (of Anglo-Saxon origin) is often more fundamental, popular,
the French more formal, polite, refined, and less emotional:
Anglo-Saxon
French
hut
cloth(es)
friendship
help
folk
hearty
holy
deep
lonely
indeed
give, hand
dale
deed
begin
hide
find
feed
hinder
look for
inner, outer
cottage
dress
amity
aid, assist
people
cordial
saint
profound
solitary
in fact
present, deliver
valley
action
commence
conceal
discover
nourish
prevent
search
interior, exterior
The French words introduced into English as a result of the Norman Conquest
often present an appearance quite different from the one they have in Modern French. This
is first of all due to subsequent developments in both languages. Thus the OF feste became
feste in ME, feast in NE, but fête in NF. Cf. also hostel - hôtel, forest - forêt, beast - bête.
English words judge, chant, chair, gentle, just have /dž/ or /č/, but later borrowings have
/ž/ and /š/: chaperon, chiffon, chevron, jabot, rouge. Cf. also police /i:/.
The second explanation lies in the fact that the Anglo-Norman or the Anglo-French
language spoken in England differed from the central French of Paris. In AN the initial cawas retained (cha- in CF): carry, carriage, cattle, CF chatel > NE chattle (personal
property), AN cachier > catch, CF chacier > chase. AN retained w- instead of gu- : waste
(gâter), wasp (guêpe), warrant : guarantee, warden : guardian, reward : regard.
Nouns and adjectives were always adopted in the form of the accusative case (no s
in the singular, s in the plural). Verbs were adopted in the form of the stem of the French
plural form:
je survis, nous survivon > survive
je résous, nous résolvon > resolve
je finis, nous finisson > finish
If a French infinitive was imported, it was used as a noun: dinner, remainder,
merger (but not: render, surrender, offer, enter!)
The adjustment of French words to English system
Like all words that are imported into English, the borrowings from French were
exposed to anglicisation.
On phonetic level, the most obvious aspect of anglicisation was the change of the
word accent.
English, a Germanic language, had the word accent fixed on the first root syllable.
French words are accented on the last syllable as a rule. The modification of the accent
was slow and gradual. For quite some time it was simply left where it was - on the last
syllable. Then in non-verbs the accent was shifted to the first syllable:
fon’taine > ‘fountain
con’tree > ‘country
hor’rible > ‘horrible
ele’gant > ‘elegant
The shift did not occur if the initial syllable was, or resembled, a native prefix:
affair, insane.
Non-verbs that were longer than 3 syllables developed a secondary accent two
syllables before the original accent, which later became the primary accent. The original
primary accent was often retained as a secondary accent, especially in words in -lute or –
tude: arti’ficial, ‘magni,tude, ‘reso,lute, ‘admirable, ‘preferable, ‘maintenance,
‘applicable, la’boratory (BE), ‘labora,tory (AE).
Disyllabic verbs retained their accent on the last syllable, except verbs that ended
in -ish or -er: finish, offer, render, enter, punish...
In longer verbs, a secondary accent often evolved on the first syllable, which
sometimes assumed the role of the primary accent:,repri’mand, ,recol’lect, ,inter’change.
The fact that the word accent was treated differently in non-verbs and verbs
explains the contrast of accent in absent, present, conduct, frequent, rebel etc. The accent
became so much associated with the word class that it is used for this purpose even in
some native words: forecast, inlay (=decorate by inserting pieces of wood, ivory etc. into
prepared slots).
Words of French origin were eventually completely integrated into the English
language system. Phonemes underwent the same changes as those in native words.
On morphological level, French words took on native bound morphemes:
prince-ly
court-ship
beauti-ful
duke-dom
colour-less
martyr-dom
Words that contain morphemes of different origin are called HYBRIDS. Hybrids
made of foreign stems and native endings are very common. Less common are hybrids
made of native stems and foreign, borrowed endings: shepardess, goddess, enlightment,
bewilderment, leakage, cleavage, shortage, murderous, bakery, oddity. The suffix - able
became one of the most productive derivational morphemes in English.
The grammatical structure of the English language had changed as well. Old
English was a fully inflected language. The noun belonged to one of 6 major or some
minor declensions, it had 4 cases, 2 numbers and one of the three grammatical genders.
The verb had a different form for each of the 3 persons in the singular and one in the
plural, in the present tense and in preterite, in the indicative, the imperative and in the
subjunctive mood.
The English of the 14th century was quite different. Grammatical categories were
no longer rendered with bound morphemes, but rather with syntactic constructions. The
grammatical gender of nouns disappeared, so did the agreement between the headword in
nominal phrases and the modifiers. Only one case inflection was retained, and the
multitude of Old English plural endings was reduced to two -es and -en. The Middle
English verb lost its inflections in the present indicative and subjunctive, except for the 3 rd
person singular of the indicative. The use of periphrastic constructions became more
common.
Middle English dialects
Middle English was far from being a uniform language. Old English dialects
evolved into Middle English dialects, but their names are different:
OE Anglian - Northumbrian dialects > ME northern dialects
OE Mercian > ME Midland dialects (West Midland and East Midland)
OE Saxon, Kentish > ME southern dialects
The English spoken on the triangle Oxford-Cambridge-London, the East Midland
dialect became prestigious, since London became the political and cultural centre. Two
persons contributed to its assertion, John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer.
John Wycliffe was the author of the first complete translation of the Bible into
English (1388). He was denounced as heretic. To make the Bible accessible to common
people was, in his time, considered a threat to the authority of the Church. The following
statement has been preserved:
“This Master John Wycliffe translated from Latin into English - the Angle, not the
angel speech - and so the pearl of the Gospel is scattered abroad and trodden
underfoot by swine”.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), on the other hand, was called “the first foundeur
and embelissher of our English”. He symbolized the rebirth of English as the language of
fine literature. His work shows the energy and the potential of the everyday speech of
people coming from all walks of the society - from a knight to a ploughman4.
As important as Chaucer himself was the man who printed his work - William
Caxton. In 1476, he established the first printing house in England, at Westminster Abbey.
He was an editor, publisher, translator and author of his own works. His decision to
reproduce the English of London and of the South-East was crucial for the history of the
English spelling. His decision was not an easy one, as he states in 1490 in the prologue to
Eneydos, one of his translations:
“...Englisshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. In so moche that in
my dayes happened that certayn merchauntes were in a shippe in Tamyse for to
have sayled over the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei tarryed atte
Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them; And one of theym named
Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to an hows and axed for mete; and specially he axyd
after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not speke no Frenshe.
And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have
hadde egges, and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that
he wolde have eyren; then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo,
what sholde a man in thyse dayes now write, egges or exren. Certaynly it is harde
to playse everyman by cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage.”
RENAISSANCE
With William Caxton and with the accession of the Tudors (1485) the period of
Middle English came to its end.
The year 1500 symbolizes the beginning of the Modern English period in England,
and throughout Europe it marks the beginning of the modern age. Several factors
contributed to the cultural revolution called Renaissance: the fall of the Eastern Roman
Empire (Byzantine Empire), the discovery of the New World, of the overseas countries,
the Reformation and, perhaps more than anything else, the technical progress, especially
the economy of printing books.
Chaucer’s time saw the emergence of English surnames. The first surnames evolved from the indication
‘son of’: Johnson, Thomson, Jacobson.... Later, people were identified by where they lived: Brooks, Rivers, Hill,
Dale, Washington, Lincoln, Cleveland, or continental Holland, Fleming, French. The next common identification
was the occupation of the person: Driver, Butcher, Hunter, Smith, Miller, Thatcher... Chaucer comes from French
chaustier... Welsh surnames have -s: Evans /evns/ (a version of Johnson), Owens, Rhys or Reece. In Scottish
names the same idea is rendered by Mc or Mac McDonald, MacPherson ‘son of parson’ (mac means ‘son’in
Gaelic, from Old Celtic *makkos < IE *maghu- ‘youngster’, same base in maiden), in Irish names O’ means
‘descendant’. In Anglo-Norman names the preffix Fitz- is common (fitz < fils < filius ‘son’).
4
Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press (by movable type) was in fact the
invention that made everything possible. Before the year 1500, the total number of books
in Europe was 35.000. Between 1500 and 1640, 20.000 books were published in England
only. The economy of books made education accessible to the rising middle class and
encouraged writing in the vernacular languages. Most European languages got their first
printed book in this period (as a rule, the Bible translation, the grammar book and,
eventually, the dictionary of the language).
The term Renaissance itself refers to the revival of the interest in classical ancient
Rome and Greece. It started it Italy as the consequence of the fall of the Eastern Roman
empire. In 1453, the city of Constantinople fell in the hands of Turks, and many scholars
fled to the west, to Italy, taking with them manuscripts and their culture. In their new
homeland they worked as teachers and aroused the interest in the ancient Greece and
Rome, especially in their artistic achievements and in the two languages. Ever since, the
study of classical languages and art has been the backbone of studies at every European
university. Latin had been the lingua franca of European scholars and of the Catholic
Church throughout the Middle Ages. With Renaissance, however, its function changes. In
its pure, classical form, the one used by Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, it became the model
of the perfect language, which has to be defended against all ‘mutilations’ of later times.
In England, scholars like Thomas More and Francis Bacon turned their back on the
Medieval Latin, but also disdained the awkwardness of their mother tongue.
Many words of French origin were remodelled into a closer resemblance with their
Latin original in the 16th century:
descrive > describe
scrive > scribe BUT: ...in Scots still scrive
parfet > perfect
verdit > verdict
peynture > picture
avis > advice
aventure > adventure
bankrout (Shakespeare) > bankrupt (< italian banca rotta, Latin ruptus, rupta)
egal > equal
Sometimes the “remodelling” affected the spelling, but not the pronunciation:
dette > debt
doute > doubt
neveu > nephew5
New words were adopted, often related to the scientific and technological revolution:
atmosphere, pneumonia, skeleton, encyclopaedia, gravity, paradox, chronology... To this
date we turn to Latin and Greek for words for new inventions: video, television,
synthesizer...
Derivatives of French words were often Latinized:
colour - discoloration
5
/’nefju:/ is an example of the so-called “spelling pronunciation.”.
example - exemplary
machine, machinery - machinate, machination
Nouns can be of Anglo-Saxon or French origin, adjectives of Latin origin:
mouth - oral
nose - nasal
eye - ocular
mind - mental
son - filial
ox - bovine
house - domestic
the middle ages - medieval
book - literary (bookish)
moon - lunar
sun - solar
star - stellar
town - urban, urbane
man - human, virile
school - scholastic
Oxford - Oxonian
Manchester - Mancunian (Med.L. Mancunium)
Cambridge - Cantabrigian, Cantabrian (Cantabrigia)6
Sometimes Latin words coexist side by side with words of native or French origin:
fatherly - paternal
motherly - maternal
watery - aquatic
heavenly - celestial
earthy, earthen - terrestrial
timely - temporal, temporary
kingly, royal, regal
murder - homicide
youthful- juvenile
readable - legible
same - identical
6
BUT: Liverpool - Liverpudlian (not Latin, but a humorous alteration of Liverpoolian, pool > puddle;
Scouse < Lobscouse, a stew of which the principal ingredients are salt beef and potatoes, scouse ‘broth’)
Glasgow - Glaswegian (not Latin, influenced probably by Norway - Norwegian)
New Castle, Tyneside - Geordie (a dialect form of ‘George’, the nickname of the miner's safety lamp invented by
George Stephenson. It later came to mean a pit worker, and was finally extended to apply to all natives of this part
of England)
knowledge - science
hidden - concealed - occult
ghost - spirit
popish - papal
womanly - female - feminine
manly - male - masculine
Latin loan-words were usually accented on non-initial syllables. At first, they were
accented as in Latin, then a secondary accent was put two syllables before the primary
accent, and, in time, it became the primary accent. The secondary accent has been
preserved especially in words ending in -tude or -lute: resolute, magnitude... Verbs usually
retained their original accent.
Renaissance and the year 1492 also mark the discovery of the New World and the
beginning of colonization. Trade and science were internationalized and the result was a
new influx of foreign words from various sources.
French: bigot - name applied to Normans by French (of obscure origin, possibly
related to Visigoths, or to by God - Rollo supposedly refused to kiss the foot of Charles the
Simple with the words: “nese, bi God” ‘no, by God’, and Charles mistook these words for
the name of Rollo’s people); detail;
Italian: gondola, macaroni (< Neapolitan macarone < Greek makaria = food made
from barley), lava - < Napolitan lava, lavare ‘wash’, balcony, cupola, spaghetti (<It.
Spago ‘cord’);
Spanish: matador, siesta, armada, desperado, embargo
Russian: steppe
Persian caravan, dervish (< Turkish ‘beggar’, < Persian darvish ‘mendicant
monk’), paradise (via French) ‘enclosed area’
Hungarian: hussar related to corsaro ‘pirate’
Polynesian taboo (< Tongan)
Arabic: algebra(< al jabr ‘bone-setting’), alcohol (< al kuhl ‘powdered antimony
sulphate SbSO4, alchemy (< al kimiyaa < Greek khemeia ‘the art of transmutation’),
alkali, albatross (via Portuguese alcatraz ‘pelican’ < al ghattas ‘while-tailed sea eagle’),
zenith (O. Spanish zenit < samt ‘way’ + al ‘the’ + raas ‘head’), nadir (< nazir as-samt
‘opposite the zenith’ , zero (M.Latin zephirum < Ar. sifr ‘empty’, also cipher < M.Latin
cifre < sifr), mosque (< masgit ‘bowing place’), minaret (< manaarat ‘canddle-stick’),
hareem (< haram ‘forbidden’), sultan (< Aramainc salita ‘rule’), assassin (M.L assassinus
< hashshaashin, plural of hashshaash ‘one who eats hashish ‘hemp’).
American languages, often via Spanish: chocolate (< Nahuatl xocolatl < xococ
‘bitter’, atl ‘water’), tomato (< Nahuatl tomatl), moccasin (Algonquian), totem (Ojibwa
nintotem ‘mark of my family’), tomahawk (Algonquian)
Dutch: yaht, cruise, ice-berg, deck, easel, etch, sketch, landscape, smuggle, reef
Renaissance added between 10.000 and 20.000 new words to the English lexicon.
In contrast to the internationalism of scholarship and trade, the Tudor politics lead
to the isolation of England. Henry VIII broke with Rome, Elizabeth I fought France and
Spain. It was perhaps the feeling of insularity, of intensified national identity, which
brought about the first resistance to wholesale borrowing from other languages. Two
distinct styles emerged: the style rich in foreign, sophisticate words was called inkhorn.
The style opposed to it was called plainess. Thomas Wilson wrote in his Arte of
Rhetorique (1553):
“Among all other lessons this should be first learned, that we never affect any
straunge ynkehorne termes, but to speake as is commonly received: neither seeking
to be over fine, nor yet living over-carelesse, using our speeche as most men doe...
Some seeke so far for outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mothers
language”.
The result of the competition between two styles was a language of unsurpassed
beauty, which defied all rules. Almost any word could be used as any part of speech. In
Elizabethan English you could happy your friend, foot your enemy, fall an axe on his
neck…’. The inventions were partly coined to meet the needs, but they also speak of
cultural courage associated with Elizabethans. No Elizabethan wrote with greater baldness
than Shakespeare.
Shakespeare spoke a variety of Midland English. He had one of the largest
vocabularies of an English writer (30.000 words, compared to AV with 8000 words). He
used both inkhorn and plainness words. Some of the words he used must have been very
new, recorded only a year or two before he used them (exist, initiate, jovial), some words
made their first appearance in his work (accommodation, apostrophe, assassination,
frugal, obscene, premeditate etc.).
Like other Elizabethans, Shakespeare loved to experiment. He wrote ‘out-Herod
Herod’, ‘uncle me no uncle’, ‘how she might tongue me’, ‘Lord Angelo dukes it well in his
absence’. His contribution to the development of English is best illustrated with the lines
which are nowadays ‘quotable quotes’:
Frailty, thy name is woman.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The time is out of joint.
It's Greek to me.
To act more in sorrow than in anger.
to vanish into thin air
to suffer from green-eyed jealousy
to be tongue-tied
to make virtue of necessity
to play fair/foul
live in a fool's paradise
it is high time
to bid good riddance
to sand so packing
to be the laughing stock etc.
BIBLE TRANSLATION - A STEP TOWARDS THE STANDARD ENGLISH
Bible translation is a very specific type of translation. The translator is under great
pressure to preserve the true meaning of God's word. For a long time, any attempt to
translate the Bible was seen as heretic.
Parts of the Bible were translated into English already in the 7th century. King
Alfred translated the Ten Commandments and parts of the Exodus Book. The Gospels
were translated in the 9th century, preserved in the manuscripts Corpus (cca 1000), Hatton
(a century later), Lindisfarne and Rushworth.
John Wycliffe7 (Wyklife, Wyclif) was the first translator of the whole Scriptures.
His translation dates from the 1380s. He was denounced as heretic. The orthodox view
was that the Bible was to be made accessible to common people only through the Church.
“This Master John Wyclif translated from Latin into English - the Angle
and not the angel speech - and so the pearl of the Gospel is scattered abroad and
trodden underfoot by swine”’.
In 1525 William Tyndale8 published his translation of the New Testament from
Greek. He, too, came into conflict with the Church and with the State. His unorthodox
translations were vigorously opposed by ecclesiastical authorities. He was imprisoned and,
in 1536, strangled and burned at the stake.
7
John Wycliffe was doctor of theology and he taught philosophy at Oxford throughout most of his career,
although he served as a priest as well. He became famous when he wrote a number of pamphlets in support of the
King in his dispute with the Church over some papal tribute. He won the patronage of the fourth son of Edward III,
John of Gaunt (leader of the antipapal faction in the Parliament). His attacks on the position of the Church won
him the title ‘the morning star of Protestantism’. Theologically, he renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation.
He sent out ‘poor preachers’ to spread his views. He strongly influenced Jan Hus. He sponsored the translation of
the Bible (based on the Vulgate). Because of the political support that he enjoyed, he was merely dismissed from
Oxford. He died in 1384. In 1415, his bones were dug up and burnt, and cast into the river Swift, all the bidding of
Council of Constance.
8
Tyndale or Tindal (c. 1492-1536) was a religious reformer and a writer. He was ordained in 1515, and
then went to the University of Cambridge. He was determined to translate the Bible from the Greek into English in
order to combat corruption in the English Church and to extend scriptural knowledge among the common people
of England. Receiving no support from the bishop of London, he travelled to Germany, where he met Martin
Luther, espoused Reformation principles, and, in Cologne, began (1525) the printing of his English version of the
New Testament, which was completed in Worms.
In 1534, Henry VIII broke all relations with the Roman Catholic Church. The
following year, Miles Coverdale, Tyndale’s disciple, published his translation of the
Bible. Coverdale dedicated his work to Henry VIII. His phraseology was largely
incorporated into subsequent English versions of the Scriptures. John Rogers edited a
slightly revised Tyndale’s translation as Mathew's Bible in 1537. In 1538, Richard
Taverner edited the The Taverner Bible. The same year, Coverdale was commissioned
by Thomas Cromwell, then vicar-general of England, to oversee the preparation of an
official version of the Bible. This work, known as the Great Bible, was completed in
1539. In 1540, Coverdale edited Cranmer's Bible, a revised edition of the Great Bible. He
is believed to have participated in the preparation of the Geneva Bible (Genevan =
Calvinist)9, which English protestants in exile published in Geneva in 1960. Scholars and
bishops of the Anglican Church finally produced the Bishops’ Bible in 1568, a final
revision of the Great Bible, which was to replace also the Geneva Bible.
All these Bible translations were best-sellers.
When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James VI of Scotland became James I of England.
He became the most powerful protestant king in Europe. He launched the name ‘Great
Britain’.
In January 1604, James presided over a special conference of bishops and Puritan
divines to discuss and reconcile religious differences. Dr John Reynolds, president of
Corpus Christi College in Oxford, proposed that a definite, authorized translation of the
Bible be made to smooth away the frictions between the Anglicans and the Puritans. James
I, Rex Pacificus, gladly agreed to support the project.
Six groups of translators gathered in Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge. They
were instructed to base their translation on previous English versions and consult the
originals. After six years of hard work they brought together their versions and revised
them. One of the translators, John Bois, kept a diary throughout the 9 months of revision.
The King James’ Bible was published in 1611 (when Shakespeare began to work
on the Tempest). KJV employs only 8000 words. It has been used and studied and quoted
more than any other version. Biblical phrases passed into the ordinary language: prodigal
son, the flesh is weak, they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind, crumbs
from the rich man's table, the Hebrew type of superlative: in my heart of hearts, the place
of all places, the evil of all evils.
KJV reached all parts of the country. It became the prescribed Bible 10 and so
9
After the execution of Cromwell, Coverdale spent eight years on the Continent. Upon his return in 1548,
he was appointed chaplain to the Protestant monarch Edward VI. Coverdale subsequently became widely known
as a preacher. In 1551 he was appointed bishop of Exeter, a post from which he was removed in 1553, after the
accession of Edward's Catholic half-sister Mary I. Coverdale was then imprisoned. Released after two years, he
went into exile, spending the next eight years chiefly at Wesel and Bergzabern (now Zweibrücken), Germany, and
Geneva.
10
KJV underwent several revisions. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) which appeared between 1946
and 1952 was widely accepted by Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic Christians. The New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV, 1989) eliminated many archaic features. The New King James Bible of 1982 introduced
contemporary American usage.
contributed to the spread and assertion of the London dialect.
It did not smooth away the friction between the Anglicans and the Puritans. The
centre of Puritanism was in East Anglia. Determined to stick to the strict Geneva Bible,
many of them left England in search of the Kingdom of God. Two thirds of the early
settlers in the Massachusetts Bay were Puritans from the eastern part of England11.
THE FIRST MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The scientific and social revolutions in the 17th century swelled the vocabulary of
English almost beyond recognition. In 1662, the Royal Society was founded for scientific
discussion, and some members argued that the English prose of scientists should be
stripped of ornamentation and emotive language. Many writers still distrusted English:
But who can hope his lines should long
Last, in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, envy prevails,
And as that dies, our language fails...
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must carve in Latin or in Greek,
We write in sand...
The reference to the daily changing tongue is no doubt due to the fact that the
pronunciation was rapidly changing (the Great Vowel Shift). At the end of the 17 th
century, the issue of Standard English was addressed by Jonathan Swift, who deplored the
corruption of English, especially abridgements, vogue words, and the chaos of English
spelling. The gap between the written and the spoken form had become wider than ever.
English needed a dictionary.
The first English dictionary was a little book of 120 pages, written by Robert
Cawdray in 1604 under the title “A Table Alphabeticall of hard vsuall English wordes
compiled for ladies or any other unskilfull persons”. It concentrated on scholarly words how, by using them - “to create an impression of fine learning”.
The first monolingual dictionary worthy of its name was published in 1752 by Dr
Samuel Johnson. He was helped by 6 assistants, five of them Scottish, one expert of ‘low
cant’ (=secret slang of beggars, argot), and an Englishman.
Johnson wrote the definitions of more than 40.000 words, illustrated with 114.000
quotations. Some of his witty definitions became famous:
lexicographer - a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge
patron - one who countenances (=supports, encourages), supports or protects. Commonly
a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flatterly.
11
The Puritans passed a law prohibiting profane language (1606). Many words used by Shakespeare were
banned: zounds < (by) God’s wounds. The expression ‘by God’ was to be replaced by ‘by Jove, dear me, oh my...
The word ‘devil’ (a euphemism itself) became deuce (low score on dice, bad luck), damn became confound,
hanged, the bl- words were banned: blessed, bloody, blamed, blimey (<God blind me), blooming. Even words like
bull, stallion, boar, cock, ram...were considered indelicate.
pension - an allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally
understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason of his country.
Johnson's dictionary is the cornerstone of Standard English. He set the
orthography, regulated the structures.
What Dr Johnson did for the lexicon, grammarians did for the grammatical
structures of English. Before the 18th century, all grammar books of English were based on
the Latin grammar, generally written for the purpose of teaching foreigners or providing a
basis for the study of Latin.
In 1762, Joseph Priestly published The Rudiments of English Grammar and this
book opened a real torrent of grammar books, which were all prescriptive and proscriptive,
not merely descriptive. The English Standard was born.
AMERICAN STANDARD ENGLISH
American English is a variety of English quite distinct from British Standard
English. Its unique character is due to a number of factors: the fact that the majority of
English settlers in America came there from East Anglia in the 17th century, the fact that in
America they came into contact with other languages, and last but not least, the Americans
wanted their language to be different from the one spoken in Britain.
1. The archaic nature of AE
The American pronunciation has many features of the speech in East Anglia in the
17th century:
/æ/ in fast, can't, path, dance
/r/ in car, four, floor, dark
/i:/ in either, neither, leisure
/ö/ in hot, not, lot
/i/ in fertile, sterile
secondary accent in secretary, necessary, laboratory ...
gotten (common in BE until 18th c.)
mad = angry (Shakespeare)
sick = ill
rare meat = underdone meat
fall = autumn
I guess = I think (current in BE in 17th c,)
2. The influence of other languages:
Native American languages (‘wigwam words’):hickory , pecan, chipmunk, moose, hominy,
papoose, squaw, igloo, kayak canoe, powwow; phrases: bury the hatchet, Indian summer,
Indian file, war paint, smoke a pipe of peace…
Spanish: barbecue, chocolate, tomato, enchilada, marijuana, plaza, stampede,
tornado...The Spanish named the territory of the states of Arizona, California, New
Mexico and Texas New Spain (from Florida to Santa Fe);
French: brioche, praline, jambalaya, gopher (French gauffre - animal digging holes in the
form of honeycomb).The French influence came from New Orleans. Louisiana was named
after Louis XIV. The conflict between the English and the French colonists produced a
linguistic minority known as Cajuns. These were French inhabitants deported from Acadia
- now Nova Scotia.
Dutch: waffle, cookie, boss, knickers (< Knickerbocker - a common Dutch surname),
Yankee (< Jan Kees, a common and humorous Dutch name); in 1664, the British seized
New Amsterdam, now New York. They forced the Dutch to exchange it for Dutch
Guyana, now Surinam. The parts of New York still bear Dutch names: Brooklyn
(Breukelyn), Harlem (Haarlem), Bronx.
The Germans from Bavaria were the first America’s non-colonizing immigrants,
fleeing from religious persecution. They settled in Pennsylvania and developed a hybrid
language known as Pennsylvania Dutch. It survives to this day in some counties, and it is
associated with the Amish and Mennonite sects.
American English has also been affected by other languages. Italian: mafia (a
Sicilian dialect word ‘boldness’), pizza; Yiddish: kosher, schmuck, schmaltz (excessive
sentimentality), goyim (gentile - goi = Hebrew for people).
The names of American states, cities and rivers display the turbulent history of the
country:
Native American: Arkansas (Arkans - tribe), Oklahoma (‘red people’), Arizona (little
springs), Michigan (great water), Chicago (place of onions), Mississippi (big river),
Missouri (person who has a canoe), Utah (mountain top dwellers), Wyoming (place of the
big plain), Dakota (another name for Sioux), Idaho (tribe), Nebraska (flat river), Texas (via
Spanish tejas = friends), Iowa (tribe), Kansas (tribe), Minnesota (cloudy river), Illinois
(tribe), Ohio (fine river), Tennessee (after a Cherokee village Tanase), Kentucky
(meadowland), Alabama (tribe Alibamon), Wisconsin (gathering of waters), Connecticut
(beside the long tidal river), Canada (village, community), Manitoba (great spirit), Ontario
(beautiful lake) etc.
Spanish names: Florida, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, Indiana, California (an imaginary
island in a Spanish romance);
French: Louisiana (Louis XIV), Oregon (from ouragon)
After different personalities: Georgia (George II), Caroline (Charles I and II), Virginia
(Elizabeth - Virgin Queen), Maryland (after Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I),
Pennsylvania (after William Penn - Charles II gave him the colony), Delaware (after Lord
Delawarw - Baron De La Warr, the title of Thomas West, the first governor of Virginia)
3. The American Standard
In the history of America, three periods are to be distinguished: the first from 1607,
the foundation of Jamestown, to 1787, the end of colonial times, when the Congress
approved the federal constitution. At the first census in 1790, the white population was
about 4 million, 95% lived east of the Appalachian Mountains, and 90 % were of British
descent. The second period covers the expansion of the original 13 colonies towards the
south and the west. It ended at the beginning of the Civil War in 1860. During this period
fresh immigrants arrived especially from Ireland and Germany (the potato famine in
Ireland in 1845 and the failure of revolution in Germany in 1848). The third period is
marked by the immigration waves from Scandinavia, Slavic countries, Southern Europe,
forced immigration of Africans, Jews, Hispanics and Asians.
At the time of the American Revolution, the Americans became conscious of their
language. Thomas Jefferson believed that Americans were more tolerant of innovations
and that, in time, the language of Americans would no longer be English. The Declaration
of Independence and the ensuing patriotism gave rise to demands that American
civilization be as different from British as possible.
No one expressed that attitude better than Noah Webster (1758-1843). He was a
lawyer, who had to earn his living as a teacher. Very few schoolbooks were available, and
even they did not seem appropriate, so Webster wrote a spelling book, a grammar book
and a reader of English in 1783, 84 and 85, under the title A Grammatical Institute of the
English Language. The success was immense. His greatest work was published in 1828:
An American Dictionary of the English Language.
Webster urged for spelling reforms: traveler, wagon, program, theater, center,
defense, ax (axe), color, honor, check, consistent use of the prefix -ize....
He tried to influence the pronunciation as well. We encouraged æ instead of ei in
angel, ancient, danger, and suggested e in beard. The effect was modest, but the secondary
accent was so well preserved probably also under the impact of syllabic reading in schools.
AMERICAN AND BRITISH STANDARDS IN COMPARISON
1. Pronunciation
/æ/ instead of /a:/ in class, path, half;
either centralized /ö/ hot, not, lot, doll, bomb, or /o/ dog, fog, song, off, moss...
/i:/ instead of /ai/ in either, neither;
/i:/ instead of /e/ in leasure;
/ə/ instead of /ai/ in fertile, sterile;
no clipped, aspirated voiceless plosives characteristic of BE;
rhoticity;
intervocalic /t/ is more like flapped /d/: latter and ladder sound alike;
/j/ dropping after all dental/alveolar consonants: new, student, duty....
which and witch are not homophones;
The word accent in AE may be different from the one in BE:
BE
AE
‘secret(a)ry : ‘secre,tary
‘ libr(a)ry : ‘lib,rary
‘station(a)ry : ‘statio,nary
la’borat(o)ry : ‘lab(o)ra,tory
ad’vertisement : ,adver’tisement
arti’san : ‘artisan
‘ballet : bal’let > ei or i
‘detail : de’tail
‘garage : ga’rage
‘lamentable : la’mentable..
2. Spelling
traveller : traveler
programme : program
theatre, centre : theater, center
defense : offense
axe : ax
plough : plow
tyre : tire
storey : story
ise/-ize : -ize
3. Lexicon
BE
AE
pavement
autumn
angry
ill
lorry
railway
underdone
quid
stay at home
Monday to Friday
visit sb
meet sb
fill in a form
check sth
staff
professors
readers
senior lecturers
lecturers
first-year students
sidewalk
fall
mad
sick
truck
railroad
rare meat
buck
stay home
Monday through Friday.
visit with sb
meet with sb
fill out a form
check sth out
faculty
full professors
associate professors
assistant professors
instructors
freshmen
second-year students
third-year students
fourth-year students
main subject
subsidiary subject
student hostel
long essays
marks
sophomores
juniors
seniors
major subject
minor subject
dormitory
term papers
grades
4. Grammar
indicative
present perfect
have you got
got
plural concord
as + clause
subjunctive
past simple (I just did it)
do you have
gotten
singular concord in government, team, committee, council, board...
(BUT people and police both plural concord)
like + clause
The differences between AE and BE are diminishing. Many Americanisms have
been accepted, if not in Standard English, at least in the every day speech. This goes
especially for slang or short monosyllabic words: joint, sucker, cut (= reduce), fix (=
prepare), and also for food: French fries (BE chips), eggplant (BE aubergine), zucchini
(BE courgette), cookie (BE biscuit) and other culture-based terms: know-how, showdown,
kosher...
American sports provide many idiomatic expressions: throw a curve, off-base, home-run,
strike out, batting order, play hard ball, get to the first base, rain check, grand slam,
double play, double header ( hat trick is BE, from cricket).
AMERICAN DIALECTS:
There are three main varieties of American English: the New England dialect, the
Southern dialects and General American (the rest of the country).
New England: the vowel in hot, pot.... is not unrounded; the vowel in fast, class is the
same as in BE; r - is silent like in BE.
Southern dialects are known for their southern drawl. Final consonants are often silent.
BRITISH NON-STANDARDVARIETIES OF ENGLISH
The English language exported overseas was a mixture of dialects and with
exception of the USA, regional differences haven’t fully developed. Contrary to that, the
English spoken in Britain is far from being a uniform language. Even among educated
people the speech of northern England differs a lot from the speech of the south. In words
like butter, cut, some the vowel is /u/, and /r/ is pronounced in the so-called rhotic dialects.
Almost every county has its own dialect. The vowel in house has 17 different articulations,
including the /u:/ from OE.
Although there are many dialects in Britain, and the regional variation is quite
diversified, the main demarcation line exists between northern and Midland dialects on the
one hand, and southern dialects on the other hand:
pronunciation: /u/ (N&M) /a/ cup, love (S)
/æ/
/a:/ bath
/a/
/o/ what
/o/
/o:/ off
NM: smoothing diphthongs into monophthongs, non-prevocalic /r/.
COCKNEY
The word cockney comes from coken ey ‘cock’s egg’, (an egg without a yolk) an
inferior or worthless thing. Originally, it was applied to any spoiled young man (Chaucer a mother’s darling or a milksop), then to citified youths. By the early 17th c. the expression
had narrowed to one place, London, and those living in a particularl part of the city. The
transformation of Cockney into the speech of the working class of East London and its
gradual redefinition as ‘low, coarse, ugly’ occurred in the 18th century, the age of Samuel
Johnson and his correct speech. The City dwellers were driven out by the money market.
At the same time, the industrial revolution attracted the impoverished population from
Essex, Sussex, Kent, and other neighbouring counties to the Eastern part of London in
search of work. These immigrants added their speech traditions to the London speech.
In General Dictionary of the English Language (1780), Thomas Sheridan, an Irish actor
(father of the dramatist), described the language situation in London with the following
words:
“Two different modes of pronunciation prevail, by which the inhabitants of one
part of the town are distinguished from those of the other. One is current in the
City, and is called the cockney. The other at the court end, and is called the polite
pronunciation”.
The ‘polite pronunciation’ was the basis for Standard English. One of the most
distinctive changes was the lengthening of the vowel in path, class, half. The diphthong
<oi> started to be pronounced /oi/ and not also /ai/ (from older /ui/, /3:/ preveailed in
servant, certain, learn, r continued to weaken.
Some characteristics of Cockney:
w for v: wery
v for w: (Sam Weller in Dickens: bevare of vidders)
ol’ for old
f for th, v for the (The Muvver Tongue by Robert Barltrop)
glottal stop for intervocalic t: bu’er,
loss of final consonants
silent h: oars = whores/ but also ‘hypercorrection (Did you hever see like)
nuffink’
a for æ haven’t - avn
gone, off /o:/ - like in East Anglia
stoo for stew, nood for nude
elongated vowels (Shaw: daownt for don't)
/əi) for /i:/ : beet, seat
/ai/ for /ei/ fate, graet
/ɒi i/ for /ai/ : high,
/a/ for /au/ about (abaht), thousand /fahsn/
grammar: non-standard double negation: There ain’t nuffink like it. (ain’t - am not I)
past participle instead of simple past tense form - I done it yesterday, I just seen ‘er.
Rhyming Slang: Originally this was British thieves’ jargon, designed to be a secret
language:
head - lump o’ lead
crook - babbling brook
girl - twist and twirl
Would you Adam an’ Eve it? = Would you believe it?
They had a bit of a bull and a cow = They had a row
Brahms and Liszt = pissed, drunk
Rosy Lea, you and me = tea
Bristol Cities = titties (traditionally Manchester Cities or threepenny bits = tits)
apples and pears = stairs
ball of chalk - walk
bowl of water - daughter
trouble and strife - wife
Sometimes one part of the original rhyme has been dropped:
butchers (butcher’s hook = look)
rabbit on (rabbit and pork = talk) = talking all the time
raspberry (tart) = fart
Many features of Cockney can be detected in Australian English, since most of the
original settlers there came from the London area.
THE LANGUAGE SITUATION IN IRELAND
Ireland was first mentioned as Ierne in a Greek poem from the 5th century BC.
Other classical writers described it under the names Hibernia or Juvernarby. However, not
much is known about the life and inhabitants of Ireland before the 4th century Ad, because
Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire. In the second half of the first millennium BC
it was probably settled by successive waves of Celts. According to their own legends, the
last to come were Gaels or Milesians (Milesius, a fictitious king of Spain, whose sons
conquered Ireland) who subdued, upon their arrival, Fomorians12 and Tuathans.
In the 4th century, Irish tribes called the Scoti harried the Roman province of
Britain. Eventually they settled in Scotland. Ireland was converted to Christianity in the 5 th
century by the patron of Ireland, St Patrick.
Medieval Ireland was a carefully stratified society, in which each individual had a
social value measured in terms of honour. Kings, clerics, and poets had the greatest
honour, with special status being given to craftsmen, musicians, and other skilled workers.
From early times each minor kingdom, or tuath, had its own king; these kings were subject
to the ardrí, or high king, who usually resided at Tara, a hill in north.-eastern part of
Ireland (a Neolithic grave from 2800 BC). In the 6th century extensive monasteries were
founded in Ireland. From these establishments numerous missionaries went off to all parts
of Europe, including our own country.
Towards the end of the 8th century, Vikings began raiding Irish monasteries. In 840
they established the raiding camps, among which Dublin (Gaelic Baile Atha Cliath), which
developed into permanent settlements and, later, trading centres. In the early 10th century
a new wave of Scandinavians arrived from northern France. The Vikings played a central
role in Irish political and economic life until their defeat at the Battle of Clontarf, near
Dublin, in 1014, by the Irish king Brian Boru.
The first step towards the English (i.e. Anglo-Norman) conquest of Ireland was
made by Henry II of England, who is said to have obtained in 1155 a bull (official
document) from Pope Adrian IV authorizing him to take possession of the island, on
condition of paying to the papal treasury a stipulated annual revenue. This bull is thought
to have been a forgery.
During the 13th century various Anglo-Norman adventurers succeeded in firmly
establishing themselves in Ireland, either by assisting or suppressing native clans. in 1314,
Edward Bruce, the younger brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, invaded Ireland and
attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the English there. The pope, at the instigation of
England, excommunicated Bruce and his Irish allies. Although Bruce's enterprise failed,
his invasion highlighted the decline of English power in Ireland. The descendants of the
most powerful Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland gradually became identified with the
native Irish, whose language, habits, and laws they adopted to an increasing extent. To
counteract this, the Anglo-Irish Parliament passed, in 1366-1367, the Statutes of Kilkenny
decreeing excommunication and heavy penalties against all those who followed the
custom of, or allied themselves with, the native Irish. In the Wars of the Roses, the
struggle in England between the houses of York and Lancaster, Ireland supported the
12
Fomorians were a race of monstrous giants supposedly descended from the second of Noah’s
three sons, Ham. Their name may be derived from fo- meaning beneath, and moire, meaning a female spirit,
of the kind which survives in the word ‘nightmare’ (originally a female monster believed to visit people and
animals in their sleep). The Fomorians lived in the watery depths of the sea and lakes, and were ruled by
Balor, the god of death, whose victims they devoured. They were finally defeated by the Tuatha Dé Danann
(‘people of the great mother-goddess Dana’). These early ancestors were defeated by Milesians (sons of
Mil). They had to retreat to Tir- na-n-Og, a distant place of eternal youth, or they live in underground palaces
as invisible fairy beings
ultimate loser—the House of York. When Henry VIII attempted to introduce the
reformation, he was strongly resisted. The Roman Catholic Church championed Irish
Gaelic against protestant English. By the year 1600, English had practically died out in
Ireland.
During the reign of James I English law was pronounced the sole law of the land.
No longer able to act independently, the Earl of Tyrone and the Earl of Tyrconnel, with
some 100 other chieftains, fled in 1607 to Rome. After the so-called ‘Flight of the Earls’,
the land in six counties of northern Ulster was confiscated and became the basis for the
subsequent Ulster Plantation. The British government then confiscated their lands,
although in Irish law these belonged not personally to the earls but to their tribes. Though
some of the poorest land was returned to the Irish, over half a million acres were given to
Scottish and English settlers, while the town of Derry was given to the City of London and
its 12 City Companies, hence its subsequent name of Londonderry. The consequences of
the Ulster plantation can hardly be exaggerated since they have been the direct cause of
three hundred years of often bloody Irish and Anglo-Irish feuding. Not only were the
settlers and their descendants of different races but, unlike the Roman Catholic Irish, they
were Protestants.
In 1800, the Act of Union made Ireland a part of United Kingdom. The merger
followed a fierce but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in Ireland. The Irish
legislature was abolished, and the Irish were allocated 32 members in the British House of
Lords and 100 members in the House of Commons. The act also provided for the
continuation of the Anglican Church as the established Church in Ireland. The Roman
Catholic Irish were denied the right to hold political office. The Gaelic language almost
died out by the year 1900. English was the only language for 85% of population.
However, after the independence in 1921, Irish Gaelic was proclaimed official, and is
strongly supported by the government.
The first language of communication, however, is still English. Three varieties of
Irish English can be distinguished:
- Anglo-Irish - a middle-class and working-class variety spoken over most of Ireland and
deriving from the English of the 17th century plantaters from England (from West and
West Midland mostly);
- Hiberno-English - the working-class variety used by communities whose ancestral
language was Gaelic;
- Ulster Scots - a variety of Lowland Scots spoken maninly in Ulster.
The three varieties influence one another. Especially Hiberno-English contains a lot of
Gaelic words and reflects Gaelic structures
Educated middle-class speech:
In Northern Ireland, very similar to Scottish English, except that /au/ in house may be
almost /æu/, /e/ in gate, may be /ei/ or even /ie/;
/r/ is similar to American /r/ - retroflex approximant. The flaps t and d are used for thin and
tin. The intervocalic t is a voiced flap d as in AE.
In Southern Ireland, /æ/ is /a/ in bad, but /a:/ in bath;
/e:/ instead of /ei/
/3i/ instead of /ai/ in buy
/o:/ instead of /ou/ in boat
/æu/ instead of /au/ in house
/oi/ is almost /ai/ in oil
/r/ is as in AmE; wh- and w- are distinctive. In many varieties, th is pronounced as flap t
and d.
Grammar:
Continuous tenses occur much less restrictively - also with stative verbs: This is belonging
to me. Aspectual distinction between habitual and non-habitual actions: I do be drunk
(habitual), he does be writing. The Present Perfect Tense is replaced with a calque from
Gaelic (I’m after doing that = I have just done it). I am., he is not … are preferred to yes
and no.
SCOTLAND
The history of the language situation in Scotland is the history of two distinct
geographical units - the Highlands and the Lowlands.
Scotland is named after a Celtic tribe Scoti, who came from Ireland in the 5th century and
managed to assimilate the Picts and the Scandinavians by the 10th century. The language
they spoke was Scottish Gaelic. After the Norman Conquest, the Scottish king Malcolm
welcomed the English speakers to his court. In the 12th century, king David granted
extensive land to families from the south and allowed them to build burghs in the
Lowlands (burghs were colonies or towns usually surrounding a castle). The language
spoken in these burghs was a northern variety of English, Scottish English, later known as
Scots.
In Lowlands, in burghs, Gaelic speakers gave up their language at an early date.
Gradually, the frontier between Gaelic and English was formed along the edge of the
Highlands. When Edward I (1239-1307) tried to annex Scotland to England, he was
fiercely resisted by Robert Bruce (later, in 1306, Robert I of Scotland). The political
independence kept Scottish English or Scots as distinct from the English of Chaucer and
Caxton, as Italian is distinct from Spanish or Danish from Swedish. This language,
preserved in rich literature is known as The Old Scottish Tongue. Its golden age was the
14th and the 15th centuries (William Dunbar, 1460-1520). By the middle of the 16th
century, however, Scottish writers had started to imitate the Elizabethans.
The decisive blow to Scots came in 1603, when James VI of Scotland became
James I of England. He moved his court to London and the aristocracy followed him. The
second blow came with the Authorized Version of the Bible translation.
When in the autumn of 1773 Johnson travelled through Scotland, he noted the
decline of the ‘Scots tongue’:
The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the English: their
pecularities wear fast away: their dialect is likely to become in half a century
provincial and rustic, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious,
and the vain, all cultivate the English phrae and the English pronunciation...’
But Scots survived in the songs and conversation of the country people. Not all
educated Scots accepted the idea that this language deserved total extinction. From the
early 18th c. on, a new literary Scots, based on up-to-date colloquial speech was revived by
writers such as Robert Burns. In 1808 John Jamieson published Etymological Dictionary
of the Scottish Language. International interest in Scottish culture was aroused by Walter
Scott, later also by Robert Louis Stevenson. Scots, Scottish English became a symbol of
Scottish nationalism.
Today, a magazine like Lallans, published by the Scots Language Society, keeps
the idea of Scottish standard alive. In 1983, the Bible was published in Scots (by William
Lorimer) - the only one speaking Standard English in it is the Devil).
Highlanders remained Gaelic speaking. The Lowlanders called them ‘Irish’,
unwilling to consider them Scottish. James I once referred to them as ‘utterly barbaric’. In
1746, the clans’ chieftains supported Charles Edward Stuart, popularly known as Bonnie
Prince Charlie, in the Jacobite uprising against the Hanoverian13 dynasty. The defeat of the
uprising had terrible consequences for Highlanders. Johnson noted:
“There was perhaps never any change of national manners so quick, so great and
so general, as that which has operated in the Highlands, by the last conquest and
the subsequent laws. We came thither too late to see what we ecpected, a people of
peculiar appearance, and a system of antiquated life...Of what they had before the
late conquest of the country, there remain only their language and their poverty.
Their language is attacked on every side. Schools are erected in which English
only is taught, and there were lately some who thought it reasonable to refuse them
a version of the Holy Scriptures, so that they might have no monument of their
mother tongue”.
The highlanders were forbidden to carry arms, wear Highland dress and play the
pipes. Gaelic was persecuted. Today it is still spoken on the Outer Hebrides and there are a
few thousands speakers in Nova Scotia. The Highlanders were economically destroyed
also by intensive sheep raising for textile industry. Many emigrated to America or joined
the army. (The Highlander Regiment fought in the battles from Waterloo to the Falklands).
Back to Scottish English:
Scots has gradually been replaced in educated usage by Standard English.
Educated Scottish people speak and write a form of Standard English with a very obvious
Scottish accent. The non-standard dialects of southern and eastern Scotland, especially in
rural areas, still resemble Scots. In Highlands, where English was initially learned only in
schools, forms closer to Standard English are used.
Some characteristics of Scottish Standard English as spoken by middle-class urban
Scots:
Phonology:
- all vowels tend to have the same length;
- ScE is rhotic, so there are no triphthongs or central diphthongs;
- the same /a/ in bad, marry, bard, father, path, grass
- /ei/ is /e/: bay, pair, gate
- /ou/ is /o/ boat;
- fern is /fern/
13
The House of Hanover began with George I, son of Sophia, great-daughter of James I, who
married the Elector of Hanover. George I spoke no English, and his son, George II was also more interested
in Hanover than England. The Hanoverians ruled until 1901, when they were succeeded by the House of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who changed their name to House of Windsor in 1917.
- bird is /bird/
-poor is /pur/;
- /hw/ in which, /x/ in loch, dreich /drix/ ‘dull’, in Scots dialects also /nixt/ for night /ScE
neit/;
Grammar:
- have does not require do: Had you good time?
- progressive aspect of stative verbs: I’m needing a cup of tea
- yet can be used with Past Simple: Did you buy it yet?; He is here yet.
Lexicon:
aye - yes,
brae - hill,
bramble - blackberry,
burn - stream,
dram - drink,
dreich - dull,
folk - people,
loch - lake,
to mind - to remember,
outwith - outside,
provost - mayor,
wee - small,
lass - girl,
lad - boy;
Some words are from Gaelic: bog = soft, moist,
inch = small island,
whisky =uisge beatha = water of life’.
how are you keeping? - how are you
I doubt he’s not coming - I expect he’s not coming
That’s me away - I’m going now etc.
Extracted from:
Baugh A. C., Cable, T. A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1993: Routledge
Blake, N. F. A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1996: Macmillian
Crystal, D. THE STORIES OF ENGLISH. 2004: Penguin.
Fennel, B. A. A HISTORY OF ENGLISH. A SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACH. 2001:
Blackwell Publishing.
Goerlach, M. THE LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF ENGLISH. 1994: Macmillan.
Graddol, D., Letih, D., Swann, J.(eds.) ENGLISH HISTORY, DIVERSITY AND
CHANGE. 1996: Routledge.
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE - VOLUMES I - IV.